Silliest thing I ever heard of! But typical – instead of going after the REAL problem (cellphone use during the school day; um – could the teachers perhaps pay more attention to what kids are doing rather thatn what they are wearing?), they take the simpistic approach and ban boots. Why not sweatshirts? How about anything with pockets?
It’s winter – I want my kid wearing boots.

As a former Teaching Assistant at a local high school, where cell phones were/are not allowed in the classrooms, I would ask those wearing uggs (these are probably just the females), to remove the ugg and shake the boot-y ! No phone…good to go.

If I shelled out the $$ for a pair of Uggs I would not be happy if my child could no longer wear them to school. Completely agree that the kids will just find another place to hide the phones.

Someone has to make a plan that prohibits outgoing texting during 8-3 during school days; if they don’t yet some school administrator should design it and market it to parents – if your child’s phone doesn’t have it, the phone can’t be in the school.

But a side note, while I agree cell phones shouldn’t be used during the day, think about some newsworthy school emergencies, that having cell phones allowed kids to be in touch with parents and authorities. I would almost want my kid to have access to a phone if they really needed it.

When I was in high school (not that long ago) cell phones had just started to have texting key boards. We used to sit in class and write notes and fold them up all fancy and dole them out to friends in the hall between passing periods. So just because they stop the cell phones, doesnt mean they will stop the kids from finding something else to do!

The decision to ban the UGG is just another issue for parents to complain about. As far as I’m concerned, the school system has given parents too much influence on how it conducts teaching methodologies already – and it shows in the declining work ethic of our youth.Parents come to the school, complain about meaningless issues (aside from bullying, biases, etc.), and fail to recognize that often it is their child’s behaviour that should be disciplined. But I guess everyone thinks their child is perfect…

The easy solution is to get cell phone jammers in school buildings. There’s this entitlement that parents have that they NEED to get a hold of their child on a moment’s notice. Guess what, schools have main numbers and paging systems. In an emergency, during school hours, parents can contact their children through the school.

But watch, as soon as someone suggests it in earnest, parents will lose their minds about not being able to interrupt their child’s learning by calling them directly. There are better solutions out there, but parents will not let them happen.

What a joke! Like the one teacher said if they have uggs on u can ask them to take boots off n shake out to make sure no phone is in them u cant ask them to take off other clothing so yer better off letting them where the uggs. My girls live In there ugg boots and its not so they can hide stuff In they just like them id fight this All the way!

I believe in holding people personally responsible for their own actions, not being personally responsible for blocking them from said actions. Why should the adults that work in a school not be able to have access to their cell phone during their free time? Why should people that keep their phone on vibrate and leave the theater, or the table when they get a call be punished? Why should the passengers riding in a vehicle be held to the same standard as the person driving the vehicle?

I’m an adult that follows the rules and appropriate courtesies, those that don’t should be called out for it. *shrug*

“Why should the passengers riding in a vehicle be held to the same standard as the person driving the vehicle?”

Because there’s no way — at least, not yet — of preventing the DRIVER from using her cell phone but not preventing the passengers from using theirs. And if you don’t take it away from the driver, then you end up with innocent people — people who may’ve been making the responsible decision themselves — being maimed or killed by those who can’t see fit to PULL OVER if they have a call to make. So which is more important? Your right to make a phone call in someone else’s car, or your right to drive on a street where morons aren’t texting or calling as their car hurtles toward you at 45 miles an hour?

Josh, There are always going to be morons no matter what anyone does. There is technology out there (bluetooth, handsfree, voice text etc.) the driver can use and yet you still have morons out there holding onto and manually texting on their phone.

So if we follow your logic of cell blocking being installed in every car to keep everyone on the road safe, we should have breathalyzers installed in every car to keep the drunk drivers off of the road and keep everyone safe. Isn’t that assuming everyone is guilty and needs to be protected from themselves so they can be protected from the morons?

I just don’t believe the majority of the innocent should be punished for the minority of the guilty morons.

DGC, what would stop the adults who work in a school from stepping outside and walking down the street to get out of range of the jammers? Sure, it’s slightly inconvenient, but there are other ways to make phone calls (land lines in the school) and access the internet (school computers).

This isn’t about punishing anyone, it’s about teaching kids. When kids have cell phones, they are more distracted, so the question is, how to prevent kids in school from the electronic distractions while school is in session.

But it looks to me like Jessi was right, and that suggestion makes adults (sounds like you’re even an unaffected adult) particularly angry.

What did I say that was angry? Can’t someone disagree without being accused of being angry? Why is holding people responsible for their own actions angry? Logic is not angry, it is calm and reasonable, and that is how I feel about this topic.

I just don’t think that because some girls put their phones in their UGGS all of the other girls should be punished. The girls that get caught with phones in their UGGS should be punished because there is already a policy in place stating that students should not have their phones during school hours. Punish the guilty, not the innocent.

You use your cell while driving, get a ticket and pay a fine. Use your phone in the movie theater? Be removed by the staff from the theater…seems pretty logical and reasonable to me.

I don’t believe because some people do not follow the rules, everyone else should be punished.

I’m in agreement that people should, by and large, be responsible for their own behavior. But when that behavior restricts or impinges on the rights of others, in ways that are forseeable because they are PROVEN LIKELY over and over again, then I think there may be good cause to put protections in place.

You say, “So if we follow your logic of cell blocking being installed in every car to keep everyone on the road safe, we should have breathalyzers installed in every car to keep the drunk drivers off of the road and keep everyone safe. Isn’t that assuming everyone is guilty and needs to be protected from themselves so they can be protected from the morons?”

There is a difference between an assumption of personal guilt (which is how you’re interpreting it) when, in fact, it’s the DEVICE (in this case, the CAR) which is being seen to be flawed.

That’s not a personal indictment of you. If anything, it’s an indictment of the device’s designers, that they didn’t consider the full ramifications of their inventions. Sometimes that’s a never-ending process. Just because technology can give us great new inventions doesn’t mean that those inventions come off the assembly line perfectly designed or taking into full account the “human factor,” the fact that humans are fallible, do not have perfect reaction times, etc. The more successful an item is (like a car), the more iterations it goes through in order to make it safer, easier, less wasteful, etc.

Do you think it’s a good idea to have a safety mechanism on a gun? Originally, guns didn’t have them. Nor were the sights as accurate as they are now. Should somebody have put their foot down after the first gun rolled off the assembly line and said, “Hey, this is perfect the way it is, stop adding to the cost (and my inconvenience!) by putting safeties on guns, stop making them more accurate, and let people be responsible for their own mistakes! Stop presuming I’m guilty of not knowing how to use a gun!”

It was improved to take into account “the human factor.” It’s not about you, or me, or anyone’s personal pride. It’s about making machines better to account for their users.

Obviously I would support breathalyzers in every car. They would make the streets far safer for innocent people, and they impinge on NOBODY’S rights. You can still drive your car any time and anywhere you want.

If drunk drivers were assured of only killing THEMSELVES, I’d be in full agreement and I’d say, “Great! Let natural selection take its course!”

#20 I don’t think having uniforms is going to stop anything! My 14 yo step daughter attends private school and my 16 yo daughter attends public school both have cell phones want to guess which one has atleast 12,000 texts a month? I’ll give you a hint it’s the one wearing the uniform.
Also, my daughter has her phone in her backpack on vibrate during the school day. If there is a emergency I want her to be able to contact me, I can check when she is texting so she knows not to text during the school day.
Uggs are not the problem is the kids not following the rules.

Also, I’m assuming you have never had to maintain or calibrate a breathalyzer machine. It’s quite time consuming and expensive, and it would indeed impinge on people’s rights, time and money.

Plus, you can always have a sober person blow into it for you. So unless the breathalyzer is also going to run a DNA test and do a fingerprint or retinal scan to make sure the person that blew into the breathalyzer and the driver are one and the same person, it will be easy get around. I’m pretty sure people would also figure out how to disable the cell phone jammers in their cars…Like I said, there are always morons out there.

From the Emergency Services side, the proliferation of cell phones have saved lives. I happen to agree with dgc, particularly since studies have shown that talking on the cell phone is no more distracting than talking to your kids in the back seat, and we all know we can’t ban kids in cars.

As for the dress code, I would be surprised if this is only a case of a couple of kids stashing cell phones. It is entirely possible that cell phones weren’t the only things being stashed, but for legal liability reasons, the school board only chose to issue one reationale. I personally know that happens more often than you would expect.